Computation, Cognition, and Pylyshyn (Mit Press)

A collection of cutting-edge work on cognition and a celebration of a foundational figure in the field.

Classical cognitive science has found itself in something of a pickle; a pickle that's so deep (if I may mix a metaphor) that most of its practitioners haven't so much as noticed that they are in it. What's so good about Pylyshyn—in particular what's so good about Pylyshyn's recent work—is that maybe, just possibly maybe, it shows us the way out of the pickle we're in—from the introduction by Jerry FodorZenon Pylyshyn is a towering figure in cognitive science; his book Computation and Cognition (MIT Press, 1984) is a foundational presentation of the relationship between cognition and computation. His recent work on vision and its preconceptual mechanism has been influential and controversial. In this book, leading cognitive scientists address major topics in Pylyshyn's work and discuss his contributions to the cognitive sciences. Contributors discuss vision, considering such topics as multiple-object tracking, action, molecular and cellular cognition, and inhibition of return; and foundational issues, including connectionism, modularity, the evolution of the perception of number, computation, cognitive architecture, location, and visual sensory representations of objects.

Contributors
John Bickle, Darlene A. Brodeur, Andy Brook, Austen Clark, Michael R. W. Dawson, Jerry Fodor, Mel Goodale, Stevan Harnad, Heather Hollinsworth, Lisa N. Jefferies, Brian Keane, Zenon W. Pylyshyn, Charles Reiss, Brian J. Scholl, Lana M. Trick, Claudia Uller, Marla Wolf, Richard D. Wright

Catherine L. Mann is a Senior Fellow at the Institutefor International Economics. She is co-author ofThe New Economy and APEC (2001) and GlobalElectronic Commerce: A Policy Primer (2000).